The culture wars wage on. Almost twenty years after the great Murphy Brown debate, we're still going at it. But now, instead of debating the pros and cons of single motherhood, the focus has turned to whether Michelle Obama erred in inviting the rapper Common to the White House Poetry Night last week. (See his actual performance here.) Critics point to this 2007 YouTube video, A Letter to the Law, though they don't necessarily listen until the very end. And they also flag his sympathetic words directed toward Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur), an ex-Black Panther, convicted of killing a New Jersey police officer in 1973. This all built up to the latest Jon Stewart - Bill O'Reilly faceoff, which drilled down to the question: Did the First Lady make a major gaffe? Or is this another case of selective outrage? Part 1 is above; Part II is here...

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Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.